The noise softens… then it stalls. It fizzles to nothing.
My concentration shatters.
The giant snakes dissolve into harmless wisps of gray smoke. The violet light in my ring sputters and dies, turning the obsidian to dull, lifeless stone.
I stumble back, clutching the edge of my desk to keep from falling. My skin feels feverish, my stomach churning with the phantom taste of her empathy. It is poison. I can feel it lingering in my blood, a foreign contaminant trying to rewrite the laws of my existence.
She stands there, chest heaving, her eyes still those twin pools of endless black. She doesn't seem to realize what she has done. She looks exhausted, drained, as if she has just run a marathon.
Rage, hot and familiar, rushes in to fill the gap where the magic used to be.
I lunge.
I cross the distance between us in a blur of motion, slamming her back against the bookshelves. Books tumble to the floor with heavy thuds.
My hand closes around her throat.
I do not squeeze to crush; I squeeze to hold, pinning her in place. Her skin is warm under my cold fingers. Her pulse flutters frantically against my thumb, a hummingbird trapped in a fist.
"What are you?" I snarl, leaning in until our noses almost touch. I can see the flecks of terror in her eyes now, but beneathit, that damnable softness remains. "What curse did you speak? What poison did you slip into the air?"
She claws at my wrist, her nails digging in, futile against my strength. She tries to speak, but my grip is too tight.
I need to punish her. I need to reassert control. I need to burn this softness out of her and out of me.
I reach for the magic again. I mentally grasp for the chaos, trying to summon a lash of pain, a spark of lightning, anything to show her that I am the Lord here, and she is the slave.
Strike her,I command the power.Burn her.
Nothing.
There is no hum in the ring. There is no answering coil in my gut. The connection to The Serpent is not just quiet; it is absent. It is as if a heavy, wool blanket has been thrown over a fire, suffocating the flames.
I stare at her, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs—not from exertion, but from a sudden, icy dawn of horror.
“My magic is gone,” I whisper in shock.
4
LEORA
The lock clicks shut with a sound like a breaking bone.
I stand in the room, my chest heaving, the air sawing in and through my lungs. I wait for the sound of retreating footsteps, but for a long moment, there is only silence on the other side of the heavy wood. I can feel him standing there. The air feels pressurized, thin and static-charged, as if a storm is pressing against the doorframe.
My skin crawls. The memory of his hand on my throat is a phantom weight, cold and possessive. But he didn't kill me.
My magic is gone.
The words echo in my mind. He looked at me not with the hunger of a predator, but with the dawning horror of a man realizing he is bleeding out.
The pressure beyond the door finally recedes. Heavy boots strike the stone floor, moving away.
I exhale, my knees giving way. I sink to the plush carpet, wrapping my arms around my ribs. This is not a dungeon.
I look around, my eyes adjusting to the dim light filtering through the tall, narrow window. The room is opulent in a way that feels suffocating. The walls are hung with tapestries ofdark grey and silver depicting jagged mountains and storms. A massive four-poster bed dominates the space, draped in velvet the color of midnight. There is a hearth, cold and empty, and a vanity carved from black wood that looks like petrified bone.
It is a room for a guest. Or a prize.
